6 Ways To Use iPhone As An External Hard Drive

If you own an iPod, you will know that other than storing music, you can also use it as an external hard disk. You simply connect your iPod to your computer and you can easily transfer files over via drag and drop. When it comes to the iPhone however, Apple sells you a larger hard disk, gives you more functionality, yet does not allow you to use it as an external hard disk. Come to think of it, the iPhone is the gadget that you are more likely to carry with you wherever you go and it is the more likely candidate to become a portable hard disk, yet you can’t do anything to it.

If you are interested in knowing how you can use your iPhone/iPod Touch as an external hard drive, here are some ways that you can get it done.

1. Discover (App Store)

Discover is the only free app in the whole App store that gives you the full functionality of a wireless hard disk. With just a wireless network, you can freely upload/download files to your iPhone.

You can either use the WebDAV protocol to connect to your iPhone via Finder, Windows Explorer or Nautilus (Gnome) or use the Web interface and connect to it via your browser. If you are a Windows user, there is even a Discover Windows client that you can use to connect to your iPhone.

Discover comes with several useful features. There is an iPhone-discovery mode where you can discover other iPhones in your network and share files with them. There is also a viewer within the app that enables you to view your files while on the move.

2. Briefcase Lite (App Store)

Briefcase Lite is the free alternative to the paid app Briefcase. This free app allows you to connect your iPhone to Mac and Linux in a local area network environment (Windows is not supported). Similar to Discovery, you can transfer files to/from your iPhone and use it as a drive to store whatever files you want. There is a viewer to view the various type of files while on the move.

There are several limitations to Briefcase Lite compared to Briefcase. Firstly, you can only upload files, but not directories. This means that if you have plenty of files, you have to upload them one by one, rather than upload them as one folder. Secondly, Briefcase Lite does not come with the remote login feature that is available in Briefcase. Thirdly, Briefcase Lite does not allow you to send files to another iPhone, but you can receive files from a Briefcase user.

In general, if you want basic file transfer and viewing functions, Briefcase Lite is sufficient. If you are looking for more sophisticated features like remote login and remote mounting of disk images and installing of packages, then Briefcase is the one to go.

Free Third Party Software

Other than the apps at the app store which deal on the iPhone side, there are also several third-party software that focus mainly on the computer side. You only need to install these software in your Windows and you will be able to use iphone as hard drive via the USB cable. There are several software for Mac as well but they are paid apps, so I will not mention them here.

iPhoneBrowser is a Windows based file browser for your iPhone. Once you have it installed in your Windows, you can navigate the whole iPhone filesystem and drag and drop files to it. You can also perform backups in case you accidentally delete some important files.

Same as iPhonebrowser, DiskAid is another software that allows you to browse and transfer files to your iPhone. There are lesser options, but it has a far simpler interface and easy to understand icons.

Other alternatives

If you have jailbroken your iPhone, there are some useful applications in the Cydia app that you can use.

5. Netatalk

Installing Netatalk via the Cydia app gives you the ability to connect your iPhone to your Mac using the AFP protocol. You can access your iPhone via the Finder and drag and drop any files to it.

6. OpenSSH

OpenSSH may not be the most elegant way to connect to your iPhone, but it is the best and easiest way for you to tweak and hack your iPhone. You will need a SSH client on your computer to make use of OpenSSH. Cyberduck (Mac), WinSCP (Windows) and Filezilla (Linux) are a few great SSH clients that you can use.

With OpenSSH, not only can you transfer files to/from your iPhone, you can also move the internal files around (do it at your own risk) or change the file permissions. This is useful if you are looking to hack your phone and install any cracked applications.

The above mentioned applications are some of the free alternatives to turn your iPhone into an external hard disk.

iphonebrowser didnt work on my pc, but diskaid did.
its not free tho, requiring a key after 14 days? w.e, i found a site that had a key and name so now ive got mines fully registered and it works great without paying a cent :D

I have a iphone 3g, version 3.0. How come i can use mine as a hard drive when it is connected to my friends vista laptop but when i connect to my own laptop i cant use it as a hard drive. could someone please explain why?

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This review may contain affiliate links, which pays us a small compensation if you do decide to make a purchase based on our recommendation. Our judgement is in no way biased, and our recommendations are always based on the merits of the items.